Media Gone Mad

Penn State students from the 1980's may remember Bro Cope. He was a crazy old man who showed up every spring and fall ( I am guessing he wintered in Florida) and stood on the steps of one of the classrooms and told everyone that passed that they were going to hell. He would call the girls sluts for wearing skimpy clothing and the boys sons of the devil for looking at them. Nobody ever took him seriously. We all just laughed at crazy Bro Cope and never gave him much thought.

It seems that The University of Florida has a modern day Bro Cope, just as crazy and just as forgettable. His name is Terry Jones. Yet somehow this crazy bible thumper has managed to draw an international media frenzy that threatens to destabilize US relations with the Muslim world and threatens the lives of our troops. How can that be possible? I can guarantee that if Bro Cope had announced he was going to burn a Koran nobody would have taken him seriously. Shouldn't we just be laughing at Terry Jones as well?

Clearly this incident marks a new low for our modern day news media. Is there anyone out there who believes that the actions of this nut case deserve anything other than complete indifference? Once there was a time when the media understood its responsibility to the public. Rather than just thinking "is this a story we can make money from" the media actually considered if it was a story they should be promoting. Bro Cope could have burned a stack of Korans and nobody would have even noticed. Yet on 9/11 there will likely be thousands of reporters hanging on every word this idiot says.

The really tragedy of this is that the very size and scope of the media coverage escalates the influence of this single incident. Even as someone who lives in the US and understands the capacity of the US media to circle jerk a story into unheard of dimensions, this one still astounds me. Imagine then how it looks to some poor guy in Indonesia who can only believe that this Terry Jones must be some powerful US cleric to be able to gather so much attention, which can only lead to the conclusion that this Jones in fact accurately represents American views on Islam. The media has elevated this piece of garbage into some living symbol of America.

If you are a member of the US press, bow your head in shame. Your profession has finally hit rock bottom. I don't blame Terry Jones for this incident. He's just a crazy old man. The world is full of crazy old men and most of us have the sense to simply ignore them. I blame the news media for giving this crazy old man an international platform. There once was a time when they had more sense.